Idiosyncratic || Peter Parker ||

||14||

It had been a whole month since Isabelle moved to Queens, one whole month and needless to say the experiences she had and the people she met grew on her. Peter Parker and Ned Leeds had grown considerably close with her, particularly after the track incident two weeks ago. Despite that night her stating she felt better, it wasn't the case at all. In fact, she got worse not too many days later, vomiting more frequently and the black ooze that protruded from her nose seemed more prominent. 

She tried her hardest to convince Peter and Ned she was fine, going as far as to force herself not to vomit until she was alone wanting the two boys not to worry about her. On top of her rapidly paced sickness, she had managed to reduce her list of names to just over a hundred. Isabelle wanted so desperately to dawdle with figuring out who Spider-Man was, because for once in her life Midtown and Queens was something normal to her. 

And she knew once she found out his identity then Tony would be quick to pull her away from normal mundane society and back into the reality of superpowers and magic. But, Tony was growing tired of checking in and her producing little to no results, she had just about used every excuse to explain why she hadn't retrieved many names. But she couldn't simply tell him she wanted to stay here, knowing full well how that conversation went down last time she asked. 

It was a Monday afternoon, which also meant Isabelle was training with the rest of the Track Team, it was also five days before the anticipated tournament and that meant Coach Wilson was training the team harder than before. Even after the incident on that Wednesday two weeks ago, Coach was still adamant on training them up rigorously.  She remained ill during her practices but didn't complain or show it, she didn't want people to worry and she certainly didn't want to let the team down. 

One thing she couldn't hide was the fact that in the course of just two weeks due to her being so sick all the time, how physically ill she appeared. Peter pointed it out to Ned one day at school, he noticed how her cheeks had sunken in, and her bright green eyes turned a sickly dull orange. She looked so incredibly fragile and while she sounded like her normal self, her stature and appearance worried Peter immensely. 

"I'm really worried about Issie..." Peter murmurs beside Ned as the two sit in the bleachers, their usual spot while they waited for Isabelle to finish up Track training. "I just don't get it, I thought she was fine," Ned added, agreeing with Peter's statement. They both observed her tiredly run around the track, even her gym clothes became baggy on her. "You don't think she has... an eating disorder."

"No, have you seen how much she eats? It's like she hasn't seen food in her life." Ned shut down Peter's concern immediately, he sighed and slumped back into the seat, "it looks like she hasn't seen food in her life..." Ned nodded in agreement, he watched as she crossed over the makeshift finish line and immediately hunch over. If only the two boys and everyone else knew how much pain she was truly in. 

Her bones ached, and she felt like she physically couldn't even smile daily, yet she managed to pull through miraculously. Tony knew nothing about it, in fact, as far as he was concerned she was the same as she was the day she left. Isabelle knew she couldn't keep it up for much longer, she couldn't hide the fact she was physically internally writhing in pain every second of the day, and she knew that Peter didn't believe when she told him she was 'fine' because quite clearly, she wasn't. 

"Should we take her to see a doctor?" Ned asked, turning his gaze to Peter. "I-I... I don't know... Clearly, she doesn't look okay but I mean she sounds fine... Ned, I've been with her every night for the past week and she seems fine but I just... I just don't understand why she doesn't look fine." Peter started to vent in frustration, he was frustrated because he had been trying his best to help her but obviously it hadn't been working.